May 22, 2014

My War On Wallets

My parents thought it an important milestone towards growing up, being more responsible, etc. I guess I didn't get that memo, as I was hoping for a slingshot at the time.

As I saw the wallet as completely useless, it sat in a drawer for many years gathering dust.

Today, I was buying gas.

I reached into my wallet to pull out a credit card, and — dang!! — the entire contents fell into the Crevice Of No Return: that slim gap between the driver’s seat and the center console. Down on my knees, fishing out small plastic cards, I became seriously exasperated.

And I was once again reminded of how utterly useless a men’s wallet should be in this day and age.

- two dozen plastic cards, each with my name and a set of digits encoded

- paper currency from a few places, depreciating slowly as all currency does

- taxi receipts I haven’t yet expensed — some are actually readable

- outdated pictures of my family — from a distant, sepia-toned era

Physically, all of this makes for a thick package that must be relocated from its traditional location on my hindquarters to another location when I’m sitting for a while: plane rides, longer drives, extended work sessions, etc.

Quite literally, it’s a pain in the rear.

Each of these physical artifacts could (and should!) be stored on a personal digital device, such as my smartphone. But the world has conspired in such a way to make this a near-impossibility in my lifetime.

And I am not alone. I would bet that — even the most annoying digerati among us — still has a collection of physical artifacts that must be kept on one’s person at all times and in all places.

I started thinking — what would it take to get rid of my archaic wallet, and all of its contents?

The Basics

Simply capturing all of this as digital information — as an app, or set of apps — is relatively straightforward.

There’s nothing on that list above that doesn’t already exist as a digital entity, with the possible exception of currency (bitcoins, anyone?).

My phone has a PIN. I use two-factor authentication to access my corporate network, and the secure content container that’s installed. By comparison, my wallet and its contents are physical entities and rarely require any authentication to use.

So don’t make this about “security”, please.

It’s Not Me, It’s You

The challenge, of course, is getting people on the other side of the transaction to accept a digital equivalent of what has been historically a physical entity. They need a clear incentive to change their ways -- and, in so many situations, that's missing ...

Example #1: I walk into my doctor’s office, and present my health insurance ID card. The receptionist takes it from me, laboriously enters its information into an application, and then asks me a few trivial questions to (presumably) help prove it’s really me.

Trust me, I’d be more than happy to fire up an app and have a QR code scanned and enter a PIN.

Example #2: I go to buy gas. I notice that there are magnetic readers for digitized wands on the pumps, but they’re branded and specific to a single vendor.

Won’t work for me, as I prefer to buy gas when and where convenient, and I don’t want to carry around a magnetized stick just for the privilege.

Example #3: I’m on a long road trip. I get pulled over by a friendly officer of the law, and asked to show (a) my drivers license, (b) proof of vehicle registration, and (c) proof of insurance.

Well, in my state you can’t get registration unless you’re insured, so there’s never a need to show proof of insurance. But I’m not in my state.

Much hilarity ensues.

Example #4: I’m boarding a flight. My QR code (coupled with a physical ID) gets me past security and onto the plane. I notice many people who are still clutching many pieces of paper.

Now, if we can just figure out a way for me to ditch the physical ID …

Example #5: My relationships with my preferred retailers (Amazon et. al. ) are completely digital. There are no physical artifacts associated with me doing business with them, other than the occasional need to dispose of voluminous packaging materials.

Example #6: I bought a new house not long ago. I had to go out and buy a multi-function printer because the various entities insisted on communicating with me via fax. You do remember fax machines?

It's my money, can't I choose a provider that knows that it's 2014?

You can see the problem — until there’s near-universal acceptance of the digital form, we’ll all be forced to carry around physical artifacts that basically encode digital information. And that change depends on some sort of forcing function.

Ancillary Issues

Yes, if I lose my phone, I’m basically screwed for awhile. But the same thing happens when I lose my wallet — no real difference, except that the re-instantiation of my phone’s contents is infinitely easier than re-instantiating the complete contents of my wallet — assuming I’ve backed things up!

It should be common knowledge by now that there are big wins for those companies that provide all-digital relationships; better branding, reduced fraud, less churn, rich data to analyze, meeting consumer preferences, etc. After all, it's 2014.

More difficult are the near-monopolies where there is no competition, or any strong incentive to meet changing consumer needs. Most government entities fits into this category (law enforcement, airport security), as do captive relationships such as with my health care provider, certain financial services, or any situation where switching costs are high.

I’m Cynical

I’d like to think that society can move ahead in the presence of a better way of doing things, but the observed evidence doesn’t support my optimism.

Obvious measures take years, decades or sometimes generations to implement. Sigh.

Comments

You could always lug your stuff around in a murse.

The thing is, sitting on your phone isn't much fun either.

Go a step wider on this idea - why carry around anything physical at all? My retinas and my DNA prove that I am me. The phone app gives me access to my money, but my money (and credit and insurance and license and etc) aren't stored ON my phone, or even ON the paper itself; the 'reality' of those documents is already elsewhere, in the DMV records, my insurer's records, the bank's records - otherwise they could never be replaced, if lost.

Imagine the pervasive existence of virtual 'desktops' at point-of-sale or point-of-inquiry replacing the now-ubiquitous credit-swipe POS consoles. You walk up, look at it, it reads your retina and presents you with your payment options, or access to insurance info, drivers license, or whatever the situation calls for.

Yes, there are all kinds of things standing in the way of it, but on a long enough timeline something like this seems like an inevitable progression.

Love this. I've gone through this kind of thought process with the goal of being minimalist -- bought one of those super slim wallets and forced myself into a process of "what do I NEED to carry" and "what can I put on my phone". I was surprised how paired down I got. 4 cards (including id), and some cash which is basically for backup. Done. It feels weird at first, and then it's normal. Now as you do I wonder when I can get rid of those 4 cards and the cash too...

Too much packrat going on out of the fear of you MIGHT need something, where when you think it through you probably don't need to. eg, a lot of those stores that give you the plastic cards still have digital systems that can look you up by name. Or all you need is the #, which you can store in many ways on the phone. So, you can do a lot of this now even before everyone catches up to the idea.

(I apply the same mentality to packing for travel, but digital can't replace your clothes just yet...)

I constantly wonder about this. When I was in high school I wrote an essay on the coming cashless society that was just a few years away. That was in 1972. Digital signatures came out over 2 decades ago and according to my attorney friends they still would not like to litigate based on anything but an illegible scrawl that can easily be pasted onto any document.

Change is difficult, expensive, and painful, especially for industries that are heavily invested into the status quo processes. In the meantime, I use a money clip that has DL, health insurance, 3 CCs, an ATM card, gym card, and cash. Every card with a barcode is in the Key Ring app.